his hat. "Good-bye. I'll
go."

Mr. Longdon watched him while, having found his hat, he looked about for
his stick. "You want to be in EVERYTHING?"

Mitchy, without answering, smoothed his hat down; then he replied: "You
say you're not for long, but you won't abandon her."

"Oh I mean I shan't last for ever."

"Well, since you so expressed it yourself, that's what I mean too. I
assure you _I_ shan't desert her. And if I can help you--!"

"Help me?" Mr. Longdon interrupted, looking at him hard.

It made him a little awkward. "Help you to help her, you know--!"

"You're very wonderful," Mr. Longdon presently returned. "A year and a
half ago you wanted to help me to help Mr. Vanderbank."

"Well," said Mitchy, "you can't quite say I haven't."

"But your ideas of help are of a splendour--!"

"Oh I've told you about my ideas." Mitchy was almost apologetic. Mr.
Longdon had a pause. "I suppose I'm not indiscreet then in recognising
your marriage as one of them. And that, with a responsibility so great
already assumed, you appear fairly eager for another--!"

"Makes me out a kind of monster of benevolence?" Mitchy looked at it
with a flushed face. "The two responsibilities are very much one and the
same. My marriage has brought me, as it were, only nearer to Nanda. My
wife and she, don't you see? are particular friends."

Mr. Longdon, on his side, turned a trifle pale; he looked rather hard
at the floor. "I see--I see." Then he raised his eyes. "But--to an old
fellow like me--it's all so strange."

"It IS strange." Mitchy spoke very kindly. "But it's all right."

Mr. Longdon gave a headshake that was both sad and sharp. "It's all
wrong. But YOU'RE all right!" he added in a different tone as he walked
hastily away.

BOOK TENTH. NANDA

I

Nanda Brookenham, for a fortnight after Mr. Longdon's return, had found
much to think of; but the bustle of business became, visibly for us,
particularly great with her on a certain Friday afternoon in June. She
was in unusual possession of that chamber of comfort in which so much
of her life had lately been passed, the redecorated and rededicated room
upstairs in which she had enjoyed a due measure both of solitude and
of society. Passing the objects about her in review she gave especial
attention to her rather marked wealth of books; changed repeatedly, for
five minutes, the position of various volumes, transferred to tables
those that were on shelves and rearrang